Man Jailed on Charges of Opening Railroad Bridge

Man Jailed on Charges of Opening Railroad Bridge
By Dan Scanlan
The Times-Union, Jacksonville, FL
April 3, 2011

A 27-year-old Lake Forest man remains in jail on charges of interference with a railroad track, burglary and trespass after a CSX railroad bridge over the Trout River was illegally opened March 26 so a boat could pass through, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

The action left a train headed toward an open bridge and the river until it stopped just in time, according to the arrest report.

Andrew Jason Hasty of the 8200 block of Concord Boulevard West was booked into the Duval County jail just before noon March 31 on $45,000 bail, according to Duval County jail records.

Police said Hasty was boating on the Trout River just before 1:30 a.m. when he came upon the closed drawbridge, which is just west of Main Street near Heckscher Drive.

He climbed up on the bridge, broke into the unmanned bridge-tender's building and somehow activated the computer controls that opened the span. That done, he re-boarded his boat and passed through, leaving the span open.

Police said a CSX train came along and was "forced to stop from potentially going into the Trout River," the incident causing a significant delay to vehicle traffic since the tracks cross roads on both sides of the span. The illegal bridge opening also delayed CSX rail traffic, according to the arrest report.

Source URL: http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2011 ... oad-bridge

How stupid!!! - and scary for the train crew. Just when you think people have done everything stupid imaginable. Hopefully he'll get some good 'ol jail time for that. I like to go boating/fishing on occasion but 130am is just a little late to be out. Gotta think he was drunk at that time of night too.

...either that or he had what he thought was an awfully pressing cargo to get through. I hope that now he's above radar.

Thats scary. How the hell was he able to operate the bridge? Are they that easy? What just and up and down switch ? Are there no security or safety overrides?

It will be interesting how this plays out.

Without a lot of information, it looks like the guy clearly broke into the tender's shed and operated the bridge, and that's wrong.

However, almost all bridges that can open over a public channel have some sort of federal or state regulation concerning hours of operation, how and when they should be opened, etc. If there was no bridge tender during a time period when the bridge was supposed to have an opening, I'm betting there will be a settlement here.

Again, I'm certainly not saying the guy was right or his actions justified.